


It's Only Temporary

by threefourthstime



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefourthstime/pseuds/threefourthstime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nya builds Pixal a new body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Only Temporary

The nice thing about machines is that they’re straightforward. They take some muscle, but all you have to do is build the biggest, sharpest mech and hit people with it. They don’t get caught up in the emotional battles, only the physical ones. You can’t screw up irreparably with a machine–if you wreck a piece, you just make a new one.

Machines are simple.

Pixal is not.

“Okay,” Nya mutters to herself, already knee-deep in a pile of scraps. “You can do this. Just…go with the flow.” She grimaces. “Do water things.”

“I don’t understand,” says Pixal. “I know that you are now the master of water, but how will your elemental powers assist you in engineering a body?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m still figuring it out.” Nya pauses. “He told you I’m the water ninja?”

“Of course. I have full access to video footage from Zane’s perspective of you utilizing your powers.”

Right, she was in Zane’s head. That’s so weird, which means Nya keeps forgetting–right now the AI is stuck in an old laptop, watching Nya work from a distance. (Zane can’t be here all the time, she doesn’t want his consciousness caught up in this too, and plus he kept staring at her funny.) Pixal’s avatar blinks from the monitor to be replaced by a grainy video–actually, no, it’s just distorted because of all the water droplets.

“The full display of your true potential was quite impressive,” says Pixal.

“Oh,” says Nya. “You think?”

"Yes."

Nya falls back on doing some measurements. She can feel Pixal’s eyes trained on her, if only metaphorically–the laptop only has an old, battered webcam, and Nya wonders what it must be like to be stuck as a spectator, with a vantage point that’s not even your own.

An idea strikes her. She looks over at the body, which is currently limp on a rolling bench like a gurney. Detail work isn’t her thing; Nya’s only here to provide some finishing touches, which… “Hey, Pixal,” she says. “How would you feel if I added a couple things onto the design here?”

“Such as what?”

“Oh, y'know, a couple defense mechanisms, maybe some lasers, that kinda thing.”

“I believe the current specifications should be satisfactory–”

“It’s kinda dangerous around here,” says Nya, raising an eyebrow. “You know how many times the ninja lose their powers?”

“If I am correct, you previously confirmed that you were also a ninja,” Pixal points out. “Do you not count yourself among their number?”

“–okay, fine. Do you know how many times  _we_  lose  _our_  powers? You gotta have some backups, just in case.”

Pixal waits a moment before answering. “I suppose I can see the benefit in such modifications.”

“So I can do it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!” Nya pumps her fist in the air. “Just you wait, this new body’s gonna be awesome.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not awesome.

Nya quickly loses track of how many times she shoots herself with Pixal’s half-constructed new arm, but once would be about a dozen times too many. She flops backward onto the floor and groans. “Uggggh. Wait. Pixal, how many times was that?”

“That was the twenty-seventh malfunction–excluding the times the targeting was inaccurate, it would be the twentieth.”

“Uuuuuuugggggggggh.” She wipes at her brow with her wrist, then realizes she just wiped oil all over her face. Even better. “You know, what if I’m not the person who should be doing this? Why can’t you ask Professor Borg? He’d help in like a heartbeat.”

“Although he would be capable of reconstructing me…” Pixal hesitates, which is strange coming from a computerized voice. With a grunt, Nya sits back up, frowning.

“…what?” she prompts, when Pixal doesn’t finish. And when the pause continues: “He wouldn’t be… _ashamed_  or anything. This is just, like, a sick day. Your da–your–well–” She breaks off, flustered.

Luckily, Pixal chooses now to start talking. “Disappointment is a statistically improbable outcome,” she agrees. “But…I feel seeing me in this condition would cause him an undue amount of emotional distress.”

“You don’t want him to be worried about you,” Nya murmurs.

“It…is rather illogical to phrase it in such terms, but, yes.” Another pause. “Also, the facilities have been rendered inoperable by the recent attacks on the city.”

Oh. “Y’know,” Nya grumbles, latching onto the change of topic, “why does it always have to be Ninjago City? Would it kill the bad guys to change up the scenery every once in awhile?”

“Ninjago City is a populous cultural hub, and thus a probable target,” says Pixal. “Aside from housing much of the country’s manufacturers of weaponry and possessing a strong trade system, it is also home to over fifty unique background characters, as well as a theoretically infinite population of recolors.”

“Background–?” Nya elects not to ask. “Y'know, how’d you get to know so much? And don’t say it’s ‘cause you’re a robot.”

Pixal does the auditory equivalent of a shrug. “I have many sources of information,” she says, and oh, the way she says that is moderately concerning. “Zane and my creator are only two of them.” Nya idly tests the arm again and is pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t shoot her, and then wonders if Pixal has any villainous tendencies she doesn’t know about.

“Having a search engine in your brain helps too, huh?” says Nya.

“That is also a useful tool, yes.”

Nya smiles, briefly. “If you’ve got access to all Ninjago like that,” she murmurs, “then how come you came to me for this?”

“I fail to see how those two clauses correlate.”

“You know what I mean,” says Nya. “I mean, I’m just–well, I don’t think this, I’m better than–but everyone thinks I’m just a little girl.”

“The answer is simple, and one of which I assumed you were already aware. Was I incorrect?”

It’s harder to read a currently-faceless robot than most people, but Nya still picks something up in Pixal’s voice. “I’m…not sure,” she says. “What’s the answer, then?”

“I came to you because I trust you.”

“Oh,” says Nya, and she decides that maybe now’s a good time to stop talking.

 

* * *

 

“You’re still gonna have wi-fi to Zane’s head,” says Nya. “Lemme know if that’s weird or anything.”

“I do not find it strange.” Pixal’s avatar is back up on the screen, although she flickers on occasion. “I was created to make use of Borg Industries’ extensive servers. Additionally, Zane and I have proven ourselves to be…quite compatible.”

“Oh,” says Nya. On the screen, little avatar-Pixal nods, and Nya ducks under the table to retrieve her tools. “Hang on, I think I forgot to snip some wires. It’ll be a couple more minutes.”

She’s supposed to let Pixal try out the new body today, and quite frankly she’s having like three heart attacks at once. Somehow, Pixal’s apparent lack of concern isn’t helping. “Yes,” Pixal continues through the laptop speakers, “and I do not believe it solely derives from his action of sharing his power source with me. We synchronize quite effectively. I will be…it will be functionally efficient and desirable to have access to a physical body once more, but I am–thankful that I will still maintain this connection.”

She keeps getting caught up on things like that. Talking about emotions probably wasn’t in her original programming; Nya wonders how much she’s picked up from Zane. “Yeah,” Nya mumbles, mostly because she’s holding a pair of pliers in her mouth. “Well, you’re welcome. I’m glad one of us is confident, here.”

“I do not understand how you can synchronize with your brother,” Pixal remarks. “You and he do not appear to hold much in common.”

Nya imagines she looks grossed-out for a second before she realizes: oh, Pixal’s shifted the topic to friendships now…or maybe they were already there? Or maybe Pixal’s way of categorizing these things is different? Something in her stomach untwists itself. “Yeah?” Nya laughs. “Well I mean, I kinda had to, growing up.”

The conversation falls silent for awhile, enough that Nya gets wrapped up in doing math on how practical it is to give a robot laser eyes. The answer is: very practical. You can never go wrong with laser eyes. Pixal’s voice disrupts her train of thought: “What was it like?”

“What?” says Nya.

“What was it like,” says Pixal, “growing up?”

“Oh.” Very briefly, Nya reemerges from under the table. She sees Pixal’s eyes locked on her and immediately remembers something else she forgot to do and ducks under again. “It’s not like it was all that exciting,” she says. “I usually skip the backstory, y’know, and go straight here.”

“You obtained some of your current skills from your childhood, correct?”

On the one hand, it’s not like Nya can forget she’s dealing with a robot here. On the other hand: well, it’s complicated.

“I mean, I guess,” she says. “Like I said–I had to.” She intends on stopping there, but somehow: “My mom and dad…passed when I was little–so it was just me and Kai. We took over their old shop, and I mean, I wasn’t gonna just sit there while my brother did all the work. And I didn’t want to lose my mind out there, so–instead I kept myself busy.” She shrugs. “I only built my mech because I knew how to do it. I’m only the Samurai ‘cause I would have lost it trying not to be.”

The words hang in the air for what feels like forever. “You say you are the water ninja and the Samurai,” says Pixal. “Do you believe these two titles are mutually exclusive?”

“I mean, I guess? I don’t know! It’s not like the master of water can go around in a giant mech all the time!”

“I do not believe that is the definition of either a ninja or a samurai.”

“Well, then, how would  _you_  define them?”

“I have access to multiple online dictionaries as well as my native language databases. Which would you prefer?”

“That’s not what I–” Nya stops. Sighs. “Let’s stop talking about me for once.” She’s still under the table; it’s been long enough that the excuse doesn’t work anymore, and yet she can’t bring herself to look Pixal in the low-quality webcam right now. All she’s doing is running wires through her hands.

“C'mon,” she mumbles, and then, louder: “C'mon. It’s time to get you up and running. Now or never, right?”

“That phrase does correlate with our present circumstances,” says Pixal, and Nya stops.

Wait–she’s probably imagining it, but–there’s something in Pixal’s voice. Like she’s trying not to laugh. Wait a second–

“Pixal,” she says, slowly. “When you keep talking like that. You’ve been messing with me this whole time, haven’t you?“

"I fail to see what you mean,” says Pixal, and Nya thinks she’s screwed it up again, but then: “Although this workshop is in a significant state of disarray, I would not attempt to exacerbate this condition.”

“You have all those dictionaries, don’t you?” Nya backs up and ventures a glance at the screen and Pixal has a glow in her eyes that’s not the lasers. “Then you know…”

Pixal elects not to say anything; her avatar offers only a triumphant smile. Nya smothers her laughter in her hand; it takes a moment before she feels up to trying again.

“Now or never?” she ventures, and her nerves settle when avatar-Pixal nods.

“Yes,” Pixal agrees, “now or never.”

 

* * *

 

Zane’s there, of course. Professor Borg isn’t yet–Pixal says he can’t see her at anything less than fully functional. She says it would undermine her purpose. Nya wonders what she would have done, if her parents–but then she decides it’s selfish to think that way, right now.

It’s not that complicated, after working with the new body for so long. A couple switches, a couple passwords, and then she closes up the chest panel, reminding herself it’s not Pixal yet, won’t be for a couple more seconds.

“Okay,” says Nya. “Are you ready?”

“Affirmative.”

There she goes again. Nya takes a deep breath. “C’mon,” she says, not quite sure who she’s speaking to, “we got this.”

Pixal comes to life without much of a spectacle. Her eyes just flicker open and regain their glow; they’re almost unbearably bright before she regains her bearings and adjusts them. Nya looks at her sleeve and on her, the verdant brilliance must be lost, because her uniform looks the color of dirt. Pixal blinks, slowly, and smiles. Zane’s beside her, his hand barely brushing against hers, asking if she’s okay. And it’s clear that Pixal is, because this, this right here–it’s almost like before. That’s what fixing things means–putting them back how they were.

Machines are simple. Nya’s good at fixing them.

It would be nice if she didn’t tend to break everything else.


End file.
